2 responses to “Angler Fish”

So I thought when Vonda was discussing the angler fish as inspiration for the little faces, I was under the impression she meant its reproductive strategy: http://mudfooted.com/deep-sea-anglerfish-bizarre-reproduction/ The males are usually under 10mm in length, and when they find a female they bite her and fuse their tissues together. The male’s eyes and organs degenerate (except for those testes!) because they are completely supported by the female. It’s really quite clever, the parallel between deep sea and deep space isolation, and I think the angler fish is a very plausible reproductive strategy in such an environment.